


Get By (With A Little Help)

by SugMak



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: White House Era (Crooked Media RPF), sneaky caretaker!Lovett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 07:56:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15968030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugMak/pseuds/SugMak
Summary: They really should have cottoned on sooner, but they were convinced that subtlety wasn't in Lovett's vocabulary. Lovett's sneaky about taking care of his friends.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a collection of scenes where Lovett takes care of his friends, but in nontraditional ways. I love the shit out of the inverse of this trope (give me everyone taking care of and heaping love on Lovett all day long) but I was inspired both by the adventures of Tommy's broken suitcase, in which he turned into such a DAD. Also by Ronan's story of calling Lovett from the cab - that one especially, since there wasn't much he could do from so far away. His response was such a perfect way to get Ronan out of his own head and concentrating on concrete one-foot-in-front-of-the-other stuff. Anyway, fiction writing isn't my strong suit, but given my daily compulsive habit of checking to see if there's new fic in this fandom, I figured maybe I should try to contribute. So this is me trying to write various, unconnected scenes of stealth!caretaker Lovett.
> 
> Okay little drunk so hitting post

"Earth to Tommy!"

Tommy jumped in his chair. "Sorry, what?" he asked, then winced at his scratchy throat. He delicately tried to clear his throat as he looked up to see Lovett standing in the doorway to his office.

Lovett frowned at him. "You look like shit."

"Thanks, Lovett," said Tommy dryly. "Was there something you wanted or are you just here to tell me that?"

Lovett flung himself into the chair on the other side of Tommy's desk, somehow managing to sprawl in the uncomfortable hard backed chair. "Honestly? I want you to go home and stop spreading the plague to the entire office. Do I need to call the CDC or something? 'Cause I'll do it."

"Your concern is touching."

Lovett squinted at him. "Seriously, Tommy. Go home. You look like you're dying."

Tommy grit his teeth. "That's exactly the vote of confidence I needed before my afternoon press briefing. Thanks for that."

Lovett's eyes widened. "You're briefing the press looking and sounding like my chain smoking Great Aunt Ruthie?"

"Yes, Lovett," he said, letting his irritation slip through. "Some of us have work to do around here. I need do put this press packet together, I need to head to a meeting in," Tommy checked his watch, "ten minutes, and I need to brief the goddamn press."

Lovett's face scrunched up in a way Tommy was already learning to associate with a rant and he was just Not In The Mood. He bit back a sigh as Lovett opened his mouth. "Don't start, Lovett. I know you keep forgetting this but we both have kind of important jobs. Go do your own goddamn work for once."

Lovett huffed indignantly. "For once? Eat me, Tommy Vietor. I'm just saying this bullshit work culture that makes employees feel bad for taking a goddamn sick day, like they're failing their boss or their employer or their...whatever," he said, gesturing expansively in a way that Tommy could only assume was meant to encompass 'country' and 'world' as well, given the context of his job, "is exactly what we need to be fighting against, not playing into-"

"Uh huh.," Tommy interrupted. "Well right now it's the situation in Syria that we're trying to fight against in this office, not workplace culture."

Lovett folded his arms mulishly. "We're smart people. We can do both."

Despite himself, Tommy felt his lips twitch. "Did you need something? Or did you really just come in here to tell me that I look like crap?"

Lovett sniffed. "If you'll recall, I came in here to tell you that you should go home before I call the CDC on your plague-ridden ass."

"I can't, Lovett. I have work to do. Like you presumably do too?"

Lovett's inevitable response was mercifully cut off by Tommy's phone ringing. Tommy winced a little before clearing his increasingly hoarse and painful throat. He sent Lovett a pointed look before picking up his phone and Lovett lifted his hands in surrender before leaving the room.

An hour later, Tommy returned to his office, his head stuffed full of talking points and potential verbal landmines and by the feel of it, cotton. After arguing over which talking points needed to be stressed and which questions needed to be sidestepped, his head was pounding and his throat ached and he honestly wasn't sure he had enough of a voice left to do the briefing. He had half-collapsed into his chair before he even noticed the parcel on his desk.

The post-it read: "On behalf of all of the TIRELESS and PRODUCTIVE work I do in shaping our democracy today and every day, and this matzo ball soup the deli accidentally added to my order: EAT ME, TOMMY VIETOR."

Under the post-it, resting on top a still-warm container of matzo-ball soup, was a Know Your Rights DC pamphlet with the "PAID SICK DAYS" section circled and the first sentence, "Almost all workers in D.C. are covered by the paid sick and safe leave law..." heavily underlined.

Tommy huffed a laugh. Between the soup and the throat lozenges he didn't remember leaving in his desk drawer, by the time his three o'clock briefing came around his voice was almost approaching normal.


	2. Chapter 2

Jon saw through him right away. Even as he was laughing his ass off in the interview, it was obvious that, while humor was his version of a social lubricant, Lovett really just liked making people happy. Which made it all the more galling when he realized later how easily he'd forgotten his first impression in favor of falling for Lovett's caricature of himself. 

"Jon seriously, just turn the TV off," said Lovett.

"This is important!" said Jon through gritted teeth.

"No, it's not. There's nothing important about watching the same six pundits take one line out of context over and over again for hours on end."

"It's important for me to see how speeches are received," said Jon, stubbornly keeping his eyes on the TV in front of him.

Lovett reached around him to switch the TV off. "Maybe it was productive for the first ten hours but at some point it's just beating a dead horse."

Jon rolled his eyes. "It's hardly been ten hours, Lovett, he only gave the speech last night."

"And yet," said Lovett, stepping in front of the TV so Jon couldn't turn it back on. At Jon's frustrated huff he raised an eyebrow. "Don't you have like twelve speeches you need to be working on?"

"Gee, if only I had thought to hire someone to help me with those," said Jon dryly.

"Jon?" said Dan stepping into the office. "Hey have you seen-"

"Dan! Jon thinks I'm so unentertaining that he'd rather watch hours of bad punditry. Tell him how wrong he is," said Lovett,

"So you've seen the coverage?" said Dan, as always, parsing the relevant parts of Lovett's conversation out of his nonsense.

"Yes - Dan I'm so sorry I should've looked over that phrasing more," said Jon as Lovett threw his hands up in his peripheral vision.

"Wha- No, hey, that's not... Taking shit out of context and spinning it is basically their job description," said Dan. "We all know that."

"Right, which is why I should've been on the lookout for anything that could be misinterpreted," said Jon, running his hands over his just-growing-in hair. He'd read that line in four different drafts and didn't think anything of it. How could he miss something like this?

Dan rolled his eyes. "Right, because that speech didn't go through sixteen other sets of eyes including the president's before it was finalized. I just wanted to see if we should rework the school funding speech in response to some of the reactions. Who's got that one?"

"I do," said Lovett. "And I'd love to rework it, I'm just waiting for my boss to turn off the TV so he can help me with the phrasing." His arms were folded in front of him as he raised his eyebrows in Jon's direction like the brat he is.

Dan blinked at him for a moment, nonplussed and probably thrown by the fact that Lovett had never referred to Jon as 'his boss' in the entire time he'd worked there. In fact getting him to even admit he had a boss whose suggestions he may want to consider was a battle Jon had long since given up on. Even when those suggestions were along the lines of "you may want to show up to work on time occasionally."

Jon shook his head helplessly. "Right. Weren't you the one just telling me I had a bunch of other speeches to work on?"

Dan was still looking at Lovett when he nodded decisively. "Put the energy speech on hold. We've got plenty of time for that.

It was Jon's turn to stare at Dan like he'd grown a second and maybe third head. If Dan was telling him to put a speech off it was looking more and more likely that he'd entered some sort of bizarre alternate reality. "We'll have less time for edits," was all he said to Dan, who smiled faintly.

"I have faith. Besides, you need to impart your superior wisdom to your subordinate. It's all part of being head of your department," he said with a smirk.

Jon glanced at Lovett to get his reaction to _that_ , but Lovett didn't dignify him with a response. He just sniffed huffily and said "well I can't work in these conditions. You might be okay with starving yourself as an act of penance like a medieval monk but if I'm going to work, it's going to be over a sandwich."

Jon rolled his eyes even though he could feel a smile tugging at his lips. He gestured expansively towards the door. "By all means. Grab your laptop and lead the way."


End file.
